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Henk Schellen

Henk Schellen has been a researcher since 1983 and assistant professor since 1986 at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He is an engineer in building physics, specialized in heat and moisture transfer in buildings. His main expertise is on building physical measurements and simulation.

Due to his contacts with ICN and the Historic Buildings Council, nowadays both part of the National Agency for Cultural Heritage (RCE, formerly RDMZ), he is frequently invited as expert to give his opinion on building physical and indoor climate problems in Dutch monumental buildings. As a result of the experience obtained in these subjects, he is often invited to give (guest) lectures on subjects related to monumental buildings.

At the moment he participates in a five year European Project on the effect of climate change on historical buildings: ‘Climate for Culture’ (2009). Most recently, a NWO project application was granted on ‘Climate Effects on Decorated Wooden Panels’ (2012) within the framework Science4Arts. Furthermore, a new PhD project on optimizing indoor climate conditions regarding energy consumption, preservation of museum objects and climate comfort in museums has started.

My research is focused on the dynamical physical modeling of heat and mass transfer in the built environment. My passion is creative computational modeling using state of art scientific software and experimental validation in real life buildings and components. My goals are so-called 'triple-win' projects, each including: scientific research, inspired education for students and relevancy for society.

Promovendi

Karin Kompatscher

Improved HVAC configuration and control for energy savings in museums and storage facilitiesMicroclimate Control for CultureMay 2015 – May 2019

Clever climate control with respect to object preservation, thermal comfort, and HVAC control can reduce the amount of energy consumed by museums. One of the most radical solutions for energy reduction would be to turn off a system during closing hours. In case of a museum this might bring an increased risk to object conservation, for collection as well as buildings.

The aim of this project is to find out what the effect of a clever climate control would be considering the microclimates in exhibition rooms. Might there be a possibility for increased risk on artefacts and building and will thermal comfort be influenced during operation hours?

Several museums throughout the Netherlands serve as case studies to investigate the effect of clever control on different building types, different collections and different HVAC systems.

The impact of climate change on cultural heritageInfluence of changing outdoor climate conditions on the indoor environment and the collection in historic buildingsJuly 2010 - July 2014

The impact of climate change is a long-term and substantial threat to cultural heritage. In order to develop more effective adaptation and mitigation strategies to preserve these historic buildings and their collections, the EU project ‘Climate for Culture’ was recently started. In this project, which consists of 27 partners from 16 European and North African countries, the damage potential of climate change on a large selection of representative historic buildings throughout Europe and North Africa is assessed. Additionally, high resolution climate evolution scenarios are connected with whole building simulation models to identify the most urgent risks and sustainable and preventive strategies for conservation of cultural heritage under different climate scenarios at regional scale are developed and implemented.

As a part of the Climate for Culture project, building simulation models are used to simulate the indoor environment and hygrothermal transport mechanisms in historic building materials. For a selection of historic buildings in The Netherlands, on-site measurements of outdoor and indoor environmental and conservation parameters are carried out to provide verification data for the simulation models. The museum monitoring system developed at the TU/e is implemented for climate data evaluation.

Based on historical measured data, climate data files from 1960 to the present, and data out of climate change meteorological simulation models, a continuous historical outdoor climate data file from 1900 to the present is created. This climate file is used as a boundary condition in hygrothermal simulation studies for evaluation of the historic indoor climate and control strategies of HVAC systems. With data derived from high resolution outdoor climate evolution scenarios, indoor climate scenarios are extrapolated into the future. These data are used for future damage risk assessment for preventive conservation of historic buildings and their collections and several expected indoor climate scenarios are compared for different locations over Europe. As a result, damage risk assessment data are presented in European maps.

In museums strict climate demands are necessary to preserve the objects displayed. Not only minimum and maximum values for relative humidity and temperature are prescribed, also the change rates are limited.

Nowadays even in purpose-built museums it can be quite hard to end up with an indoor climate which soots the demands. Monuments are a completely different story. These buildings weren't built to cope with a very strict indoor climate. If applied, these strict climates lead to all kinds of problems, e.g. huge energy use, condensation, wood rot, fungal growth, tearing of beams and crystalization of salts.

The problems in a few Dutch museums are uncovered during this research. Differences in building type will be important. Each type will lead to specific problems. The climate possibilities for each type will be investigated. The main goal is to have a safe indoor climate for both the objects and the building itself. A general approach is used, which can be applied to all types of monumental buildings.